Act 1 Flashcards
Starts with
Starts with a black and white projection & news broadcaster/Churchill → juxtaposes life the jamaicans bring to the screen
What happens when Hortense sings at the beginning
Hortense singing while projection moved and set comes on → dropped down/stage spins/chairs on stage
Blond woman over-acting
American accent too overdone and sounds Irish at some points
Hortense - monologue - great accent
Sarcastic
witty
in love
brave
Hortense explains her childhood and how she fell in love
Hortense sits next to her younger self
Lights get brighter
Colourful clothing in Jamaica cf Britain
When preset hortense talks to audience the lights go darker
Present hortense stays on stage the whole time
Use table as a ‘tree’ simplistic set design
Michael ‘falls’ out of tree → flips off table
Still in ‘classroom’ set up
Past hortense runs around → becomes
chicken shed → present hortense flips
blackboard round
Blackboard drawn on - looks like
bamboo
Present hortense responds instead of past hortense
Adults all face to back but kids face front
When michael back it is a warm light until dad prays at table then it goes brighter
Hortense gets hit and flinches when Michael’s father shouts → faces his wrath too many times?
Use table to ‘look for woodpecker’
Michael checking hortenses out
Hortense speaks to aud & moves a chair - back to blackboard
Michael walked her to door and he goes through frame hortense doesn’t
Lights change when michael and white woman kiss → creepy music/storm gets worse → lighting = darker and black and white and harsher
All the actors pick up the chairs and spin around the stage → hurricane picking up
All actors at back of stage facing away → slowly spin and face Hortense
Hortense screamed at by Michael’s mother
Michael want to leave
Mother all over him screaming
Father keeping distance - stomped foot
Hortense distancing herself from Michael - too hurt
Mother screams when michael touches Hortense’s arm - caring
Tableau → Hortense singing then everyone sings with
Projection of a sea crashing and props
taken off by ensemble when singing
Door frame come up through centre of stage and queenie and white guy walk through it
Bed wheeled on
Parents came on with bucket and a pig → cut open a pig on stage
Aunt popped on stage → lifted on
Trying to queenie to go down to London
- Queenie wants to leave farm
When queenie goes to london
Projections of london on screen → making it appear wonderful to Queenie
Ensemble comes on - walk around → busy london
Cinema seats wheeled on on moving stage
Mirrors opened and queenie walks out dressed up real nice
Excited for life
Hope she has kids → hope for a better
life
Finally happy
Happy to be out of a farm
Meeting bernie for the first time
Projections of sweets
Sweet counter wheeled on
Bernie good actor
Very quiet and nervous
Stiff - wooden
Cinema scene
Projection of an old movie
Queenie responds to guy in the movie saying i love you → unsure if she does
Get engaged
Aunt dies dramatically Chokes on a sweet Goes down through floor Comedic relief Queenie’s mother and father chuck sweets she died from down the ‘grave’
Ensemble sing for funeral
Rainy weather for funeral and when bernie walked through the doors
Bernie awkwardly carries her through
doorway - came from floor
Window floating
Bernie father stays on stage
Has dad carry off coats
Comedic scene
Then heart wrenching scene - no children yet
Back to argument
Ensemble walk around outside
Then alarms go off and they run
Lights go dark
Bombs come down
Light is bomb shines on bernard and queenie
People go flying
Bernie grasps queenie to him and says he loves her - first time on set most likely first time he ever said it to her
People walk around - people that have been bombed
Handing out flyers
Queenie at home saying goodbye to bernard
Trying not to cry
Quick goodbye
Clouds projected onto background
Doors open → foreshadow arthur’s death
Bernard looking back at queenie
Roommates walk in
Say hello
Jazz music playing in background → queenie and michael fall in love
Handshake
Jazz music playing another black guy walk in
Getting beat up by a white guy - wins
fight when talking to add then gets hit
again
Music stops when fighting stops
Explains how he joined the army
Joining army
Speaks to a jazz guy - in jamaica
Putting army uniform on
In army speaking to ‘sergeant bastard’
Planes overhead
Angry for having to drive
Walk into town
White women move away from black guys when they wave
Never seen them before
Baby cries
Says walked into village ‘on his own’ emphasised - has to remind his friends to move away
Arthur approaches - chases him
Plane flies over head - shadow then flies on streets projections
Thinks arthur is trying to wank - comedic effect
Black guy meets queenie
Checking her out
Thought it was micheal
Freeze frame while black guy spoke to her
Gilbert makes queenie laugh
Takes the food given by queenie
Dancing when eating
Gilbert gets beat up by 2 white guys - interrupt his monologue with the aud
White guys trying to get gilbert to salute him
Queenie walks on looking for arthur
Arthur walks on with flowers for queenie
Going to cinema to get away from white guys - queenie didn’t know what was about to happen to gilbert
Gilbert forced to sit at back - black segregation
American tries to tell gilbert to sit
Queenie trying to get them to shut up
Was in movie theatre - fight breaks out all the white soldiers attacking gilbert
